The use of bashrc can be overridden by "--rcfile file" on startup - don't know if that's what webmin did do you, but you should NOT be using bashrc to start other programs: use .bash_profile or .profile.

No, that's not really what's happening, but .bashrc is NOT for starting programs (unless it's something that you want to run everytime any other shell script runs).

Logging a user into an app should be done in .bash_profile, not .bashrc

From the man page:

When bash is invoked as an interactive login
shell, or as a non-inter- active shell with the
--login option, it first reads and executes com-
mands from the file /etc/profile, if that file
exists. After reading that file, it looks for
~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, and ~/.profile,
in that order, and reads and executes commands
from the first one that exists and is readable.
The --noprofile option may be used when the
shell is started to inhibit this behavior.

When a login shell exits, bash reads and
executes commands from the file ~/.bash_logout,
if it exists.

When an interactive shell that is not a login shell
is started, bash reads and executes commands
from ~/.bashrc, if that file exists. This may be
inhibited by using the --norc option. The --rcfile
file option will force bash to read and
execute commands from file instead of ~/.bashrc.

So, yes, it won't run .bashrc without SOMETHING else to run, but again: it's purpose is NOT to start apps for users.. use .bash_profile for that.

Fri Apr 8 14:00:40 2005: 304 dhart

mmmm, yes, I see your point. The road to .bashrc is fraught with peril.

I had managed to avoid that trap by placing exec /usr/local/bigbadshellscript in .bashrc.

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